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My point is that people from underprivileged backgrounds realistically don't pay any different amount in tax and are only further removed from access. To repea

My point is that people from underprivileged backgrounds realistically don't pay any different amount in tax and are only further removed from access. To repeat myself: "Their children take [accruing debt] to mean that they absolutely shouldn't go to university, no matter how capable they are." Tax pays for plenty of things that working class people don't use; it also pays for plenty of things that working class people do use, that other people are paying for - and the latter category should include university education. Tax is an agreement that we find these things valuable to pay for, as a society. Not everything paid for in taxes has a direct benefit to everybody.

headmelted 6y ago
"Tax is an agreement that we find these things valuable to pay for, as a society." But we don't agree. A lot of people are affronted that as they see it they're being asked to, in essence, fund a high quality education for wealthier people's kids that their own kids can never have access to. Whether they're right or wrong (and I've yet to see evidence that they're wrong), that's their view. And there are a lot of them. Which is why Clegg could never sell it to the electorate back in the coalition days.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  If we all took the point of view that any government spending that doesn't directly and immediately benefit us personally should be cancelled, no government spending would be likely to happen at all. It's an inherently right-wing/individualist position. I think this is an issue of right-wing media spin, rather than beliefs that working-class families innately hold. (Also since my experience of working-class families' views is generally the opposite of your claim.) There is a lot more egregious government spending distribution problems than this one, which get ignored. In general, government spending benefits the middle classes (and upper classes) far more than it does the working class, and that's true in other areas more than it is in education. From https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/does-uk-government-spending-help-the-poorest-or-the-middle-class https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/does-uk-government-sp... e.g. "The wealthy also drive three times as many miles as the poor. This makes them big beneficiaries of spending on roads, worth £8 billion a year. Poor people make up ground elsewhere: they use buses twice as much. But bus subsidies are smaller."

headmelted 6y ago

"Tax is an agreement that we find these things valuable to pay for, as a society." But we don't agree. A lot of people are affronted that as they see it they're being asked to, in essence, fund a high quality education for wealthier people's kids that their own kids can never have access to. Whether they're right or wrong (and I've yet to see evidence that they're wrong), that's their view. And there are a lot of them. Which is why Clegg could never sell it to the electorate back in the coalition days.

throwaway2245 6y ago
If we all took the point of view that any government spending that doesn't directly and immediately benefit us personally should be cancelled, no government spending would be likely to happen at all. It's an inherently right-wing/individualist position. I think this is an issue of right-wing media spin, rather than beliefs that working-class families innately hold. (Also since my experience of working-class families' views is generally the opposite of your claim.) There is a lot more egregious government spending distribution problems than this one, which get ignored. In general, government spending benefits the middle classes (and upper classes) far more than it does the working class, and that's true in other areas more than it is in education. From https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/does-uk-government-spending-help-the-poorest-or-the-middle-class https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/does-uk-government-sp... e.g. "The wealthy also drive three times as many miles as the poor. This makes them big beneficiaries of spending on roads, worth £8 billion a year. Poor people make up ground elsewhere: they use buses twice as much. But bus subsidies are smaller."